6 Other Cult Movies That Deserve MAC Makeup Collections

Like all of New York City’s college freshmen who nurtured their weirdness throughout high school as if it were a rare bird and prided themselves on their sexual fluidity and excessive allyship (Livejournal interests include: BOYS WHO KISS BOYS! BOYS IN DRESSES! BOYS IN HEELS! RAINBOW FLAGS! “YOU LAUGH AT ME BECAUSE I’M DIFFERENT, I LAUGH AT YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE ALL THE SAME!”), I went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show performed live. Not only did I go, I dressed up: two girls whom I quickly aligned myself with during orientation because of their big laughs and even bigger personalities and I strapped our parentally-unsupervised bodies into corsets, squirmed into fishnets, and stuffed wads of tube socks into our sexy-for-eighteen-year-olds underwear. It was exciting and frightening and we were endorphin-drunk with freedom. The show was fun and silly but, in a way, the process of getting ready transcended everything that happened down at the theater. By dressing like a boy (Tim Curry) who dressed like a girl, we were able to explore our nascent adult sexuality, allow ourselves to perform womanhood and desirability in a lurid, amplified way. I suppose, in a way, it was about seizing control of a body that up until then had been a source of grief, controversy, restriction, and shame. Also, we just wanted to wear corsets.

While I no longer religiously watch Rocky Horror every Halloween like I used to, I still look back on the movie fondly, with many teen feels lodged in my heart. Thus, when MAC cosmetics announced it was creating a Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed collection for the film’s fortieth anniversary, I was delighted. Who doesn’t want the brutally red lips of Magenta or the bold kohl-lined look of Dr. Frank N. Furter? The longer I thought about this surprisingly campy collaboration, the more I realized that cult films are the perfect source of beauty inspiration. In a matter of minutes, I generated a list of six other B-grade flicks that could spawn an entire makeup line. Checkout my picks below.

LabyrinthLabyrinth is twenty-five percent Jim Henson puppets, twenty-five percent glitter, and fifty percent David Bowie’s crotch, which is why the movie is so beautiful. While I’m not sure that M.A.C would be able to distill the power of Bowie’s bulge into a pigment, the rest of the (dance) magic (dance) should be easy enough to harness: all you need is a ton of iridescence, luminescence, and silvery shiny things. Just a collection based on the masquerade ball would be opulent and extraordinary! Also, if this happens, you have to make an orangey-red lipstick called “The Fire Gang“. Thanks.

Barbarella
Sure, Barbarella has the ‘60s beauty game down pat — big hair, big eye, lots of lashes, everything pale and luscious — but the real fun lies in the film’s vision of the future. A space race-inspired M.A.C. collection would be the perfect antidote to the ’90s mall punk aesthetic currently running Tumblr. Exaggerated plastic packaging with colors varying from milky whites to psychedelic purples? WE WANT IT!

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
SO MUCH LIQUID EYELINER AND OILY BLACK PIGMENTS AND SLEEK LEATHER PACKAGING (POTENTIALLY DEADLY, WITHOUT A DOUBT MISANDRIST) AND ON-POINT EYEBROW GAMES — HOW HASN’T THIS HAPPENED YET?

Pink FlamingosPink Flamingos may be a bit too filthy for a cosmetics company — I suppose a shit-eating scene doesn’t immediately inspire one to rub colored creams and pencils around one’s mouth — but the film is such a breathtaking shock of color and camp that I’d be remiss if I didn’t include it. If you’re going to make a collection saluting a man in drag, why not go all the way and put a pipebomb under Eurocentric beauty ideals by exalting a plus-sized cross-dresser with hairline-grazing eyebrows and psychotic anger? In our humble opinion, the world still hasn’t produce a blue eyeshadow that accurately captures Divine’s divinity. And isn’t “Pink Flamingos” the perfect beauty product name? M.A.C. — it’s worth a shot.

Heathers
Okay, if you don’t think that a M.A.C. collection evenly divided into four parts — red, yellow, green, and blue, à la the croquet scene — with products customized for all three Heathers and Veronica is the cutest idea you’ve ever heard, then I want nothing to do with you.

Showgirls
HOLY LIPLINER, BATMAN! Acrylics, rhinestones, contouring palettes for your nipples, vajazzling satchels — the possibilities are endless when it comes to Showgirls. And not including a lipstick called “Ver-Sayce” would be A MISTAKE.